Some litterateurs have returned the Sahitya Akademi awards conferred upon them in protest against the growing intolerance that leaves no scope for dissent. Hindi writer Uday Prakash returned his award to register his protest against the assassination of Kannada writer M. Kalburgi. Nayantara Sahgal followed suit, returning her award against what she said was a “vicious attack” on “India’s culture of diversity and debate”. Ashok Vajpeyi has also announced to return the award saying, “It’s high time that writers take a stand against such incidents.” Six Kannada writers have also returned the awards given to them by the state government. And recently two more writers — Hindi author Krishna Sobti and Malayalam novelist Sarah Joseph — returned their awards while executive board member K. Satchidanandan resigned from all bodies of the Akademi. The killings of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, Kalburgi and Mohamed Akhlaq are deeply disturbing and threaten to tear asunder the pluralistic fabric of the country.
But, the return of Sahitya Akademi awards by some of these writers raises some questions. They can return the citation, the certificate and the money which is quite meagre in the case of Sahitya Akademi award, but how will they return the honour and recognition they got, which in turn boosted the sale of their books which were translated into several languages, and also got prescribed in courses? Everyone has a right to dissent and protest if the voice of dissent is stifled. But the government has no role in the selection of Sahitya Akademi awards — it is done by an independent jury of writers, and till date it is quite independent because it has the system of electing office bearers democratically; only the money of the award comes from the government.
If a writer wants to be totally independent and objective, they must not accept any award. Jean Paul Sartre refused the Nobel Prize, and gave two reasons for it, personal and objective: “The personal reasons are these: my refusal is not an impulsive gesture, I have always declined official honors. In 1945, after the war, when I was offered the Legion of Honor, I refused it, although I was sympathetic to the government. Similarly, I have never sought to enter the Collège de France, as several of my friends suggested. This attitude is based on my conception of the writer’s enterprise. A writer who adopts political, social, or literary positions must act only with the means that are his own — that is, the written word. All the honours he may receive expose his readers to a pressure I do not consider desirable. If I sign myself ‘Jean-Paul Sartre’ it is not the same thing as if I sign myself ‘Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner’.”
In fact, Sartre had written to the Swedish Academy even before the announcement of the award, when he came to know that he was in the race, that he would not accept it. But the Academy rejected his plea and announced his name. There are some who have declined awards in India as well. Arundhati Roy refused the Sahitya Akademi award and journalist Nikhil Chakravartty declined Padma Bhushan saying that it would rob him of his independence. But very few people decline big awards. Sartre is the only one so far to have declined the Nobel Prize. In 1925, George Bernard Shaw initially refused it but subsequently changed his mind and went to Stockholm to receive the prize. In 1958, Russian writer Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize which he accepted but was forced to decline as the Communist Party of the USSR was livid. However, his descendants received it in 1988 on his behalf.
Besides, the role of Indian writers and intellectuals has not been something to be proud of. The Emergency exposed them, warts and all. Most kept mum; some kowtowed before the government. The silence of the intelligentsia was baffling and it astounded none else than Indira Gandhi herself as she shared with some people later on. Nayantara Sahgal, the niece of Jawahrlal Nehru, raised her voice against the Emergency. She was a member of the Sahitya Akademi’s advisory board for English, a post from which she resigned during the Emergency. She famously criticised Indira Gandhi for her actions during the Emergency in 1975. However, she did accept the Sahitya Akademi award in 1986 despite the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
Writers and intellectuals often cringe before power the most. Amir Khusro was in the court of six sultans (kings) including those two, one of whom was slain and the other one who murdered and usurped the kingdom, i.e., he had the confidence of the sultan who was murdered and then he also won the confidence of the successor who was the killer. There are some writers who are not bound by the laws of morality and ethics which apply to others. Ashok Vajpeyi has returned the award but it is well-known in the literary circles that when he was the vice-chancellor of the Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University, Wardha, he ran his office from Delhi and did not go to Wardha for a single day. It will not be out of place to mention a personal experience.
The then VC of Mahatma Gandhi University, Vibhuti Narayan Rai, had triggered a storm by his interview that there is a fierce competition among some women writers as to who is a bigger coquette — “Aajkal kuch mahila lekhikaon mein hod hai ki kaun kitni badi chhinal hai.” I organised a TV debate on the issue on DD News, and invited him as a panellist. He consented, but when he came to know that Chitra Mudgal was also on the panel, he not only refused to come but shouted at me on the phone: “Why have you invited Chitra Mudgal? DD has lost all its sense of proportion. She will support Vibhuti Narayan Rai. I shall not come.” It is true that Chitra Mudgal supported Rai but objected to the language used by him. However, it is not clear how did Vajpeyi know of her position before hand. So much for highfalutin talk about freedom of expression. He exhorts writers to take a stand but what is his own record on the scale of morality and tolerance?
Freedom of speech and expression is a hard-earned right that must not be dissipated. There are people who have sacrificed their lives to uphold the truth. Giordano Bruno was burnt alive on the charge of blasphemy and immoral conduct for supporting the heliocentric theory of universe and saying that the stars were just distant suns surrounded by their own exoplanets. Galileo was awarded death penalty by the Pope for propounding that the earth was not flat but round which revolved round the sun. In jail, when he was belaboured, he would say that the earth is flat and the sun moves round it. But as the pain subsided, he would revert back to his original position. Unfortunately, the role of the intellectuals in India has not been very edifying in this regard.
The writer is a senior TV journalist and author
